The GW Institute for Korean Studies & the East Asia National Resource Center Present:
Korea Policy Forum
“The Crisis that Has Defied Five Presidents:
Covering the North Korean Nuclear Program for Three Decades”
Speaker
David E. Sanger, National Security Correspondent and Senior Writer, The New York Times
Moderator
Yonho Kim, Associate Director, the GW Institute for Korean Studies
Date & Time
Friday, December 6, 2019
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Location
Lindner Family Commons, Room 602,
Elliott School of International Affairs, the George Washington University
1957 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052
Event Description
The North Korean nuclear drama often seems like a movie in constant re-runs: A set of actions in Pyongyang creates a crisis; the crisis generates threats and sanctions, and then a spate of diplomacy as one American president after another promises to deal with the problem, once and for all. And yet, for all the noise, the North Koreans appear to be on a steady track toward building their nuclear arsenal, and the missile capability to deliver it. David E. Sanger, who has covered these issues since the late 1980’s, talks about what is the same now and what is quite different—and poses the question of whether there is a way out of this continuous loop. He will also address the North’s growing cyber capability, and why it offers the country leverage and capability that nuclear weapons do not.
Speaker
David E. Sanger is a national security correspondent and a senior writer. In a 36-year reporting career for The New York Times, he has been on three teams that have won Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 2017 for international reporting. His newest book, The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age, examines the emergence of cyber-conflict as the primary way large and small states are competing and undercutting each other, changing the nature of global power. He is also the author of two Times best sellers on foreign policy and national security: The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power, published in 2009, and Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, published in 2012. For The Times, Mr. Sanger has served as Tokyo bureau chief, Washington economic correspondent, White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and Chief Washington correspondent.
Moderator
Yonho Kim is Associate Research Professor of Practice and Associate Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
This event is open to public and on the record.
